Kristen Stewart delivers a committed, award-worthy performance in Pablo Larrain’s exquisite but depressing reimagining of Princess Diana as her marriage was failing. Basically based on fact, an opening title card reminds that this is “A fable from a true tragedy.” The film is named Spencer, Diana’s maiden name, to show her already separated from the royal family.
It is set when Diana reluctantly joins their traditional Christmas celebration at the Queen’s Sandringham Estate, circa 1991. She is not only unacceptably late, but so unhappy, and self-destructive, she disrupts the traditional festivities right from the start.
The opening scene shows the regimentation of its elaborate preparation for the weekend as if a military operation. As soon as Diana arrives, she is commanded for the traditional weigh-in, a throwback from Queen Victoria who demanded all be weighed upon arrival. They were to be weighed again, after the weekend, to make sure they ate enough as a sign of a successful celebration. It is so weird to see the royal family sit on an antique scale before anything else.
All Diana wants to do is be with her sons, who are 9 and 11 at the time and very excited to see her. The happiest scene , and they are few, are those of sheer joy playing games with William (Jack Nielen)and Harry(Freddie Spry) by themselves. Diana gives them her own special Christmas gifts, but not in front of the family.
This is a much different take than Larrain did in the movie Jackie on American royalty and another fashion icon, Jackie Kennedy. This piece shows Diana much younger and inexperienced than Jackie. She is a repressed royal with so many restrictions along with spies. The servants report her every move to Queen Elizabeth who literally orders the drapes to be sewn up in Diana’s bedroom to prevent paparazzi from getting telephoto shots through the windows.
Major Alistair Gregory (Timothy Spall-Denial), the chief of the staff, is an imposing figure running roughshod with precision over the family as well as the servants. Diana bucks him at every turn. But Larrain, later in the film, shows he has some compassion for Diana’s plight trying to reason with her. He advises her to just go along with the royal program to make her life easier.
You can feel the tension build in Stewart’s demeanor and on the actress’ face as duty overrides any freedom or pleasure. Cinematographer, Claire Mathon (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) admitted putting the camera nearly touching her face. “I could feel her breathe and I was watching eery single little moment, what she was feeling and the way she was moving.” Larrain actually shot a few of the more emotional scenes himself. One of his favorites is Stewart is running down a long hall looking as if Diana is about to emotionally explode.
At one point Diana is shown alone, perusing the elegant pastries and food in the drool-worthy grand pantry. She was known to be bulimic and stuffs her face, but when confronted, tosses them back and walks away. The traditional exchanging gifts before the Queen on Christmas Eve was not popular with the Princess or her boys. It’s intimated that Charles’ gave the same gift to her rival, Camilla Parker Bowles (Emma Darwell-Smith). Larrain creates a sequence showing it so disgusts Diana that she imagines tearing it apart, chewing up the pearls and painfully expels them into a toilet bowl.
The score from Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead adds an eerie aura. There are punctuations of discordant piano notes interspersed with a boozy, breathy, jazzy trumpet mirrors Diana’s mental fog. The music seems as out of place as Diana’s presence in that Sandringham estate.
Writer Steven Wright (Locke) didn’t have to use much dialogue to show the tension felt at every turn. Stewart lost her California accent working with a coach to get Diana’s whispery British intonations right. And she does. But we found the scene with with Prince Charles (Jack Farthing) in the billiards room awkward. It not only showed the conflict in the couple’s personalities, but what little regard they had for each other. We were disappointed in the casting of Farthing who played the Prince as a fairly clueless wimp.
The castle representing Sandringham (Schlosshotel Kronberg castle in Germany) is absolutely magnificent. Production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas fills it with regal detail, down to the portrait painted of Stewart as Diana. Jacqueline Durran designed and collected a retro wardrobe from the best European designers which mirror the elegant and also the kicky styles that made Lady Diana a trend setter. Stewart displays them defiantly showing she wanted no part of any of the formal trappings. But she dances around in one sequence in a myriad of outfits that were pulled to use in the film, but not for any specific scene. Mention also made that she lost weight. That concerned another important character Larrain develops in the film. The only person Diana trusts is her primary Dresser, Maggie, who really loves, and understands her. She is always there for Diana which also makes Maggie a target.
Larrain includes another, haunting scene where she goes to the Spencer family’s abandoned house on the Sandringham grounds. Larrain turns it into a dream-like, horror sequence with flashbacks of her childhood and the house now so dilapidated, adds to Diana’s sad mental state.
Although the palace is filled with the warm glow of fireplaces creating a veneer of joy and happiness. In reality, Larrain fills it with cold people who create unrelenting pain for Diana. Larrain directs Kristen Stewart to her best film performance yet, in a film that is magnificently crafted, but so depressing to watch.
NEON 1 Hour 51 Minutes R
In Theaters Now
